Roc D'Azur 2012: Dirt Jumping

My mother always told me that sometimes it's best just to be honest, so here goes... I'm a thirty year-old guy from the UK. This means I know pretty much zero about 18 year-old French dirt jumpers. So I can't tell you anything about the riders, what I can tell you is that the jumps were properly man-sized and some of these kids had tons of style in the air.

They hadn't done the run-in by halves, this must have been a solid 20 metres up.

There was no smooth run down the ramp either, just this awkward-looking booter that launched them into a big, dirt landing. Very few of the guys were doing anything more than get through this.

All that run-in meant the guys were getting serious height on the second jump though.

Flags are probably great for a brand's presence at an event like this, but they make it difficult to find any kind of angle to take photos from. And to Heat energy drinks: the big banner blacking out the sea behind the riders at the top of the ramp ruins a great photo.

I promise this photo hasn't been rotated at all, he really was that flat on a 360.

While tricks are great, you still can't beat a big, lazy whip.

The crowds here at Roc D'Azur are immense, the place is packed with tens of thousands of people today and it will be even busier for the main race tomorrow. That meant riders from all types of mountain biking were packing in to watch the dirt jumping, from downhillers, through to fully-shaven, lycra'd XC racers.

A nice big three over the second jump, while the other riders watch on.

That's quite some extension there.

The wind coming in off the sea meant the sky changed completely every few minutes. This was one of the rare, clear blue spells.

As I say, it wasn't your usual crowd for a dirt jump event.

This guy was more or less killing it all morning, he made the extension on this seatgrab look easy.